Individual Liberty : Part 07, Chapter 06 : Liberty and Labor

1908

People

(1854 - 1939) ~ American Father of Individualist Anarchism : An individualist Anarchist, Tucker (1854Ð1939) was a person of intellect rather than of action, focusing on the development of his ideas and on the publication of books and journals, especially the journal Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order... (From : Anarchy Archives.) • "The evil to which this [tariff] monopoly gives rise might more properly be called misusury than usury, because it compels labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the misuse of capital." (From : "State Socialism and Anarchism," by Benjamin R. Tu....) • "But although, viewing the divine hierarchy as a contradiction of Anarchy, they do not believe in it, the Anarchists none the less firmly believe in the liberty to believe in it. Any denial of religious freedom they squarely oppose." (From : "State Socialism and Anarchism," by Benjamin R. Tu....) • "It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it..." (From : "State Socialism and Anarchism," by Benjamin R. Tu....)

Liberty and Labor

The industrial problem has always been an acute one in Great Britain, and the
politicians have been struggling with it for a great many years. From time to
time the editor of Liberty recorded and commented upon the
efforts of the more clear-sighted economists in that country to solve the
problem, hence his welcome of a new book on the subject:

Auberon Herbert, whose essay, "A Politician in Sight of Haven," creates such
an enthusiasm for Liberty in the minds of all thinking people who read it, has
recently published still another book of similar purport and purpose. He
calls it "The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State: A Statement of the
Moral Principles of the Party of Individual Liberty, and the Political
Measures Founded Upon Them." It consists of a series of papers written for
Joseph Cowen's paper, the Newcastle Chronicle, supplemented by a
letter to the London Times on the English factory acts. Dedicated
to Mr. Cowen's constituents, "The Workmen of Tyneside," it appeals with equal
force to workmen the world over, and their welfare and their children's will
depend upon the readiness with which they accept and the bravery with which
they adhere to its all-important counsel. The book is a magnificent assault on
the majority idea, a searching exposure of the inherent evil of State systems,
and a glorious assertion of the inestimable benefits of voluntary action and
free competition, reaching its climax in the emphatic declaration that "this
question of power exercised by some men over other men is the greatest of all
questions, the one that concerns the very foundations of society," upon the
answer to which "must ultimately depend all ideas of right and wrong." This is
a bold and, at first sight, an astonishing claim; but it is a true one,
nevertheless, and the fact that Mr. Herbert makes it so confidently shows that
he is inspired by the same idea that gave birth to this journal, caused it to
be christened Liberty, and determined it to labor first and
foremost for Anarchy, or the Abolition of the State.

This is no fitful outburst on Mr. Herbert's part. He evidently has enlisted
for a campaign which will end only with victory. The book in question seems to
be the second in a series of "Anti-Force Papers," which promises to include
special papers dealing more elaborately, but in the light of the same general
principle, with the matters of compulsory taxation, compulsory education, land
ownership, professional monopolies, prohibitory liquor laws, legislation
against vise, State regulation of love regulations, etc., etc. I know no more
inspiring spectacle in England than that of this man of exceptionally high
social position doing battle almost single-handed with the giant monster,
government, and showing in it a mental rigor and vigor and a wealth of moral
fervor rarely equaled in any cause. Its only parallel at the present day is
to be found in the splendid attitude of Mr. Ruskin, whose earnest eloquence in
behalf of economic equity rivals Mr. Herbert's in behalf of individual liberty.

This thought leads to the other, that each of these men lacks the truth that
the other possesses. Mr. Ruskin sees very clearly the economic principle which
makes all forms of usury unrighteous and wages for work the only true method
of sustaining life, but he never perceives for a moment that individual human
beings have sovereign rights over themselves. Mr. Herbert proves beyond
question that the government of man by man is utterly without justification,
but is quite ignorant of the fact that interest, rent, and profits will find
no place in the perfect economic order. Mr. Ruskin's error is by far the more
serious of the two, because the realization of Mr. Herbert's ideas would
inevitably result in the equity that Mr. Ruskin sees, whereas this equity can
never be achieved for any length of time without an at least partial
fulfillment of individual liberty. Nevertheless it cannot be gainsaid that Mr.
Herbert's failure to see the economic results of his ideas considerably
impairs his power of carrying them home to men's hearts. Unfortunately, there
are many people whom the most perfect deductive reasoning fails to convince.
The beauty of a great principle and its harmonizing influence wherever it
touches they are unable to appreciate. They can only see certain great and
manifest wrongs, and they demand that these shall be righted. Unless they are
clearly shown the connection between these wrongs and their real causes, they
are almost sure to associate them with imaginary causes and to try the most
futile and sometimes disastrous remedies. Now, the one great wrong that these
people see today is the fact that industry and poverty commonly go hand in
hand and are associated in the same persons, and the one thing that they are
determined upon, regardless of everything else whatsoever, is that hereafter
those who do the work of this world shall enjoy the wealth of this world. It
is a righteous determination, and in it is to be found the true significance
of the State-Socialistic movement which Mr. Herbert very properly condemns and
yet only half understands. To meet it is the first necessity incumbent upon
the friends of Liberty. It is sure that the workers can never permanently
secure themselves in the control of their products except through the method
of Liberty; but it is almost equally sure that, unless they are shown what
Liberty will do for them in this respect, they will try every other method
before they try Liberty. The necessity of showing them this Mr. Herbert, to be
sure, dimly sees, but, the light not having dawned on himself, he cannot show
it to others. He has to content himself, therefore, with such inadequate,
unscientific, and partially charitable proposals as the formation of voluntary
associations to furnish work. to the unemployed. The working people will
never thus be satisfied, and they ought not to be.

But Mr. Herbert can satisfy them if he can convince them of all that is
implied in his advocacy of "complete free trade in all things." To many
special phases of this free trade he does call marked attention, but never, I
believe, to the most important of all, free trade in banking. If he would only
dwell upon the evils of the money-issuing monopoly and emphasize with his
great power the fact that competition, in this as in other matters, would give
us all that is needed of the best possible article at the lowest possible
price, thereby steadily reducing interest and rent to zero, putting capital
within the comfortable reach of all deserving and enterprising people, and
causing the greatest liberation on record of heretofore restricted energies,
the laborers might then begin to see that here lies their only hope; that
Liberty, after all, and not Government, is to be their savior; that their
first duty is to abolish the credit monopoly and let credit organize itself;
that then they will have to ask nobody for work, but everybody will be asking
work of them; and that then, instead of having to take whatever pittance they
can get, they will be in a position to exact wages equivalent to their
product, under which condition of things the reign of justice will be upon us
and labor will have its own. Then Mr. Herbert's work for Liberty will no
longer be a struggle, but an unmixed pleasure. He will no longer have to
breast the current by urging workmen to self-denial; he can successfully
appeal to their self-interest, the tide will turn, and he will be borne
onward with it to the ends that he desires.